(special thanks for the picture, you can buy the tshirt here)

First off, maybe the image is strong, because Myspace has truly helped many artists and labels, so it is sad to see them not continue in that direction.

Myspace is still the largest and dominant social network, yet it mistreats artists and labels, big and small. The site is under increasing pressure: Facebook is catching up at a rapid pace and should surpass Myspace as the world’s largest social network, but also Myspace Music which was supposed to help labels monetize their content, is failing. The major labels are not happy (as usual, except for EMI), but now there are more and more growing complaints, especially from the independent labels and also all the widget makers, digital stores and many others hoping to help artists monetize their content on their myspace pages.

Until recently, artists could copy paste Beatport, Loud Feed or any other widgets on their myspace page and thus sell their music, since Myspace does not offer the ability to sell music unless you are with the majors (with few exceptions). However, now you can still paste these widgets on your page, but unfortunately they are ineffective since Myspace is now blocking the outgoing links from within the players.

This is a dishonest and anti competitive move on the behemoth’s part. Their inability to come up with the necessary developments to help artists should not push them to preventing others from helping artists. Besides, have any artists seen a cut of their advertising revenues?

Something needs to be done and if Myspace does not change their attitudes and show some gratitude towards its artists and labels, then the exodus to a better and more profitable place will occur. Artists and labels no longer rely on the site to succeed. To remain relevant it will have to offer more solutions to artists and labels and in particular the ability to sell content. Regardless, if Myspace does not undergo strategic changes, I am willing to bet that Last.fm or others could rapidly surpass them as the premier music social network.

Would it not be much nicer for artists to have a customizable webpage where you can have all the widgets you want to sell, license and promote your music. Shouldn’t your fans be able to buy your music from you? Well you can now do that by getting started here. Check out what AIRDROP has done with its Loud Feed page. And the truth is we are not the only ones, but we are doing our best to add features and tune them as closely as possible to the true needs of artists and labels.